the WIP project

Here at the-wip-project, we want to help you write and finish your WIPs. Our Discord server: https://discord.com/invite/uAxqrjtcf

barbex's writing advice blog: @the960writers, private blog: @barbex. Maree's blog: @mareebrittenford.

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Ongoing:

Summer Writing 2026

Writing in the summer, with camaraderie, deadlines, and accountability.

June, July, and August

Announcement is here, first post here.

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Ongoing:

Planning all the plans!

Last day of the month we make writing plans for the coming month. Post is here.

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Ongoing:

SloMo WriNo, Write your novel in a year

Welcome to The Slower Moving way to Write a Novel! Or SloMoWrino for short.

This challenge doesn't focus on getting you to write faster, but on developing a solid writing habit, and writing your novel in a more relaxed way.

This project is run by Maree and the first post is here.

You can subscribe to the #slomowrino tag to make sure you see all the posts here, or subscribe to Maree's substack.

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The projects through the years:

June is over and we're well into the second month of the Summer Challenge. And I don't know about you, but my self drive and momentum is just about gone.

I'm tired, hot, and sweaty. (And you might be enduring heat much worse than me!) So, sitting down and writing feels like the least desirable activity ever.

How do you keep writing when your motivation is literally sweating away?

For me (and hopefully for you) the best help has been to get social about it.

Remember that camaraderie we offered as part of the challenge? That whole idea of writing not being an entirely solo mission?

I'm talking about writing sprints.

Now, some people are wary of sprints. Perhaps you write slowly, or don't like the idea of competing for word counts. Honestly? Same Here! For a long time I stayed away from them because of all that. Nothing made me feel worse about a writing session than having other people constantly reporting their high word counts and seeing how pathetic my own efforts seemed in comparison.

But here's the good news. You don't have to follow writing sprint 'rules.' Perhaps we'd all be better off if we called them Focused Intervals instead.

Here's some ways you can flex the method to suit your own needs.

Ditch the word counts. Instead of reporting a word count at the end of each interval, try reporting one thing you're pleased with. It can be a great line, a plot problem solved, or even 'opened the document and made words.' That's all great achievements and matter more in the long run than any specific word count.

Vary the amount of time. The standard is to do ten to fifteen minutes, but I personally do better with 25 minute intervals. Maybe you'd have fun with setting the timer for five minutes! Or uneven numbers, 14 minute sprints? Why not?

Mix up the activities. Say you reach out to a friend and ask to write together. And they say 'I'd love to, but I really need to tidy up my house/pay some bills/do boring work task.' No problem! You can do any of those tasks as a timed interval too. Last week I was doing data entry for work while an online friend wrote. Great for both of us!

Overcome Starting Inertia. If you're struggling to start, tell yourself you only need to write for 10 minutes and then set a timer. Maybe you get on a roll, maybe you quit after the ten. Either way, it's a success!

Hello writerly friends!

I had to look it up, but yes, this is indeed week 5 of summer writing.

I — unknowingly — became a heat wave refugee, as I'm currently sitting up on a mountain in Norway at 11 degrees Celsius, with my feet wrapped in a blanket. I'm very sorry for everyone stuck in the oven that is central Europe right now.

Writing wise, it's difficult to find the time, the space, and the mindset to write for me, what with driving and camping. Instead I switched to using my time for reading, which gives me new ideas and new words I can shove into my vocabulary, so I consider this adjacent to writing.

As I was thinking about my story (also adjacent to writing, yay me!), I can see that certain point coming up that always comes up for me when writing an original story. The point where it turns into work, where it drags and needs so much filling of the middle and worldbuilding and structure and all that. That's the point when I doubt myself, when I'm sure that this is all stupid and I'm just not a writer at all.

I'm sure a lot of us know this feeling. There is always that nagging voice in the back of my mind saying something like "if you were any good at this, it wouldn't be so hard" and "look at you struggling with this part, you know real writers have fun at this point?". Yeah, my writing brain is a real bitch.

But I came across an interesting article here:

Struggling with creative work doesn’t mean you’re failing

This post describes that creative work is a different kind of task than other things we are doing. If we do something difficult, like the author of the article training for a marathon, we expect difficulties. They are part of the process. But creative work has no set framework like that. We don't know what kind of difficulties to expect and they catch us off-guard.

The author compares it to making a cake from a recipe and creating a new recipe for a new cake. If you follow the recipe, you can reasonably expect to get a good cake out of that. You might encounter some difficulties like whipping the butter just right, but the process is kind of set for success.

But if you want to come up with a brand new cake, there will be a lot of trial and error, there will be failures, there will be several cakes that are not so great, where the recipe needs refinement, until you find the right combination that works. That's also a process, just not a linear one like following a recipe.

All of this is to say: the struggle is normal. Running into difficulties doesn't mean we don't know what we're doing. Difficulties are not a sign of failure.

So if your writing brain is as nasty as mine, tell it to shut up and put up. We got writing to do, we don't have time to worry about difficulties.

Have a good summer writing week!

~ barbex

Here's the new calendar for this week, as always you can find all the files at the google drive:

Here we are, 3 weeks in!

How's the writing going for all of you?

I have to admit, it's not been going so great for me. I've actually been feeling a bit frustrated that I'm not making more progress on my main project, and instead am only managing to poke along slowly on what's supposed to be a small side fanfic.

But when I stop and think about it, it's great that I'm writing anything at all.

After all, I'm in the middle of a home renovation, as well as under a (self created) deadline to finish a knitting project. I've got enough serious tasks going on in my life right now. I don't have the bandwidth for anything else.

But because of this challenge I've still been managing to write something each day. Which is pretty great when I think about everything else going on.

I bet a lot of you are in the same boat! When major stuff starts happening in your life, or simply competing commitments, it's easy to let the writing fall by the wayside. But if you're participating in this challenge, that means you don't want to let that happen!

But that doesn't mean it helps automatically. When you're making your plan for week four, make sure you think about all your commitments, so you can find the right balance.

But what if things have been so hectic that the writing has been shut down completely?

Try approaching it from the perspective of carving out a bit of time and space just for yourself. You may not be used to thinking about writing in the same way as self care, but for me it soothes and balances me out to have my writing time. If you think about it like that— well! Writing time is essential, right?